My Background

My work has always involved food so the progression towards being a food creative involved in Film, TV and Photography seemed a natural progression for me after a career of nearly 20 years working in world class multi-michelin star kitchens across the world and two award winning restaurants of my own in the UK.

My creative work is extremely varied working for many different clients in various medias. Each job brings its own individual creative needs as well as drawing from my extensive background food knowledge. A typical week might involve a shoot creating a new character from ‘fake’ ice cream for a packaging shot and another working behind the scenes on a TV drama creating the food used in a dining scene, I love my job!

Where it all started...

I grew up in North Yorkshire on our family farm in the Vale of York. After completing a degree in Physics at the University of Manchester in the mid 1990’s I spent a couple of years working in hotels in France. Here I gained my first experience in the kitchen, starting out as a pot washer or 'plonguer' before persuading the Head Chef to let me start cooking! On my return to the UK In early 1999 I landed an apprenticeship with Aaron Patterson at the Michelin Starred Hambleton Hall Hotel in Rutland. My time at Hambleton Hall really instilled an awareness of the amazing produce available to me in the East Midlands. This awareness subsequently formed my chef ethos- championing local & national artisan producers, using only small scale local ‘rare breed’ cattle, sheep, pig & poultry farmers and foraging in the surrounding countryside & hedgerows throughout the year for morels, wild garlic, wild plums, watercress & of course the abundant local game during the autumn & winter. In 2010 my former restaurant 'Entropy' was shortlisted for the UK's Best Restaurant in the Observer Food Monthly Food Awards.

I am delighted to have had my passion for local produce & ‘forgotten foods’ recognized by an invitation to be part of the ‘Slow Food Chef Alliance' and to recently work along side Slow Food UK in support of their 'Slow Meat' initiative, promoting the idea to consumers of eating less, but 'better' meat and raising awareness of the alternatives to intensive meat production.

I am largely ‘self taught’ yet I have sought to expand my culinary knowledge continually over the years with internships at some of the World’s leading restaurants including Heston Blumenthal's Fat Duck, Le Champignon Sauvage, Tom Aikens and The Square in the UK and Per Se, Gordon Ramsay, Babbo and WD-50 in New York. Additionally in 2008, I studied food flavour and perception at post-graduate level at the University of Nottingham.

I have extensive experience in property development having project managed the creation of my two previous businesses from a derelict butcher’s shop and joiner’s warehouse into restaurants that have gone on to achieve national recognition.

Always pushing myself to exceed, I look forward to new opportunities, new connections and developing new skills